Up First from NPR - Inside War-torn Sudan, Corporate Grocery Profits, Memphis Officers On Trial

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

NPR gets a rare look inside Sudan where fighting between the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces has left millions displaced and struggling for survival. As grocery prices remain high, new data examines whether profits are outpacing rising costs. And the trial of three Memphis police officers begins with disturbing footage of the fatal traffic stop of 29 year-old Tyre Nichols.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Rebecca Rossman, Susana Capeluto, Emily Kopp , Mohamad El Bardicy, and Alice Woelfle.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Iman Maani, Nia Dumas, Lindsay Totty and Chris Thomas.We get engineering support from Carleigh Strange and our technical director is Zac Coleman.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A rare look inside Sudan where a civil war has left cities in ruins and millions on the brink of famine. They forget about us. It's a forgotten war. Why is one of the world's worst humanitarian crises getting so little attention? I'm Leila Fadil, that's Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. Tyree Nichols was killed after a violent encounter with Memphis police officers during a traffic stop last year. Three of those officers are now on trial accused of violating the 29-year-old black man's civil rights and attempting to cover it up. Also, grocery prices remain high. Are big companies behind it or is there something else going on? We have no other choice. We have to buy groceries. They use that to take advantage and keep raising prices.

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Do you feel like there's more on your to-do list than you can accomplish? Or maybe the world's problems feel extra heavy these days. We can't eliminate stress, but we can manage it. It's almost like I have a new operating system now. Like I tend to live more in this light. Stress Less, a quest to reclaim your calm. A new series from NPR's Life Kit. Since fighting erupted in Sudan almost 18 months ago,

it's been hard to get humanitarian aid, let alone press access into the country, which is one of Africa's largest by land area. As the ruling Sudanese army and the paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, fight for control of the country, millions of people have been displaced inside and outside of Sudan, and the United Nations says the fighting has put millions of people on the brink of famine. But with much of the world's attention focused on conflicts elsewhere, the war in Sudan has struggled to get attention for the humanitarian disaster. And that's been made worse by the fact that it's so hard to get in.

But NPR correspondent Emmanuel Akinwotu did manage to get in. He's been in Sudan for the past two weeks, and he's with us now from the wartime capital of Port Sudan. Good morning, Emmanuel. Good morning, Michelle. So, Emmanuel, you've been covering the conflict, and you managed to report from the outskirts of the capital, Khartoum. This is where fighting first broke out. What did you find there? The scale of destruction is just hard to believe.

In places, it was almost apocalyptic. We walked through this once iconic market called Souk Omdurman. It was this vibrant place, as vibrant as Times Square, but now it's a ghost town. The storefronts were shattered and broken. People's personal belongings, like their bags and slippers, were just littered out onto the streets. There were even chairs covered in bullet holes set around this small table with a kettle where people used to drink tea. And there are so many areas like this.

Emmanuel, was there anybody there? Did you meet anybody? And can you tell us about them? I met this 64-year-old man called Mohamed Kher. He was born in Omdurman and he actually worked in the US for over 10 years, even as a security manager at Dulles Airport just outside of DC. He showed me his home built by his father about 100 years ago, but now it's in ruins. I cannot believe it. You cannot imagine it. I'm just trying to start from the beginning. He told me the RSF looted his home. They took his TV, his air conditioners, his money before they were forced out of the city by the army in May.

There are parts of Mdoman that feel more normal but even there it's not really normal because of the shelling. Just across the Nile, the RSF control the capital city Khartoum and while the army conducts airstrikes there the RSF are shelling. Just across the Nile, the RSF control the capital city Khartoum. And while the army conducts airstrikes there, the RSF are shelling on demand constantly. Emmanuel, that just sounds horrific. And now this fighting in Sudan has caused what is believed to be the worst ongoing humanitarian crisis in the world. What does that look like on the ground? And how are people surviving?

Well, the scale of need is just immense. Half of the population are acutely hungry. Parts of the country are already experiencing famine. It's the worst displacement crisis in the world. People are just not getting the aid that they need, mainly because of a lack of safe routes. But frankly, even if there were safe routes, the amount of aid still isn't enough. There's this common feeling from people that the world just doesn't care

and that they have to rely on themselves. One example I got to see are these incredible community kitchens where people are cooking meals for hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, and it's funded from donations from within Sudan and from the diaspora. Are there any particular people who stuck with you? Any stories that's just stuck in your mind? I spoke to one doctor called Jamal Mohammed. He works at Al-Nau Hospital, which has been shelled constantly and often lacks basic supplies. He said one of the worst moments was when he operated on two children. I had to amputate them without anesthesia.

He feels the country has been totally abandoned. They forget about us. It's a forgotten war. And he talked about just how overwhelmed hospitals are. He feels the country has been totally abandoned. And he talked about just how overwhelmed hospitals are. That's Emmanuel Akinwotu in Sudan. Emmanuel, thank you. Thanks, Michelle. You can hear more of Emmanuel's reporting from? Well, many shoppers tell NPR they think so, like Arian Navarro from Houston. I think it's the big corporations. We have no other choice. We have to buy groceries.

They use that to take advantage and keep raising prices. NPR's Alina Selyuk took on the task of figuring out if the data backs up this opinion. And she's with us now to tell us more about it. Good morning. Good morning. What a project. Where did you begin? It was hard. So I thought I'd start with three facts nobody seems to dispute. One, many consumer brands and supermarkets have been reporting record profits. Two, companies almost always pass on their costs to shoppers.

And three, those costs rose a lot during the pandemic. I will call out one of those costs, higher wages for workers, which actually many economists have argued is the key driver of grocery inflation. But so you put it all together, and the obvious question to me was, how much are profits outpacing rising costs? Tell us what you found out. Turns out there are just very many ways to calculate this. I started out crunching corporate reports of a dozen giants, including Walmart, Kroger, Pepsi, Kraft Heinz, Procter & Gamble. And what I tracked was the portion of money companies keep after paying just the cost of making or stocking those products, just those direct costs. Accountants call this the gross profit margin. Okay, what'd you find out?

For almost all the companies I analyzed from pre-pandemic to last year, the gross profit margin either grew less than 1% or it actually declined. That's interesting. So not taking an exorbitant cut here. Not the smoking gun I think a lot of people thought you were going to find. No. So I started asking the smartest economists I knew, and they said that these individual reports don't really fully explain what's going on. I've got to look industry-wide using government data. Okay. So what'd you find out there? more profitable during the pandemic. Then those profit margins dropped, and now they've settled close to pre-pandemic levels. Grocery stores are a different story. They're a lot less profitable

to begin with, and their profitability climbed more slowly than other types of stores, but they've also been slower to give up those gains. So the grocery industry has kept a slightly bigger share of sales over time. So grocers are keeping a bigger cut. Yes, but it doesn't automatically mean greedflation. So it could be that stores are selling more things that are more profitable. That's one of the factors. Like store brand items, for example, they're super popular, they're cheap on the shelf, and they are more profitable for the retailer. It could also be that stores are charging more because shoppers didn't really push back on higher prices until this year. So on that original question, are greedy companies to blame for higher grocery prices?

It's a very unsatisfying answer of it's messy, it's complicated, it's nuanced. And the good news is things are changing. The grocery inflation is now the lowest in years. That was a project. It was. That is NPR's Alina Selyuk. Alina, thank you. Thank you.

A jury in Memphis heard opening statements yesterday in the federal trial of three former police officers involved in the deadly arrest of a black man last year. The three officers, who are also black, are charged with violating the civil rights of 29-year-old Tyree Nichols, who died after a traffic stop turned horribly violent. They are also accused of conspiring to cover up their roles in the incident. Surveillance and body camera footage captured officers restraining, kicking, and punching Nichols. He died in the hospital three days later. Katie Reardon from member station WKNO was in the courtroom for opening statements, and she's with us now to tell us more. Good morning, Katie. Good morning. So let's start with the prosecution. What is their case? Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Rogers told jurors to prepare themselves for evidence that's hard to watch and listen to, that they'll see Tyree Nichols beaten to death on camera from multiple angles. She's referring to that publicly released footage that you mentioned. Rogers says the video will show that Nichols tried to calm officers down

after they pulled him over and that he struggled with their inconsistent commands before he's pepper sprayed and flees on foot. We also know that two other former officers who pleaded guilty to federal charges will be called on to testify. And on Wednesday, Rogers said they'll talk about a so-called run tax. That was the first time this term has surfaced in this case. She described it as a kind of understood punishment that this group of officers would inflict on people who ran from them. Prosecutors also want to convince jurors that the officers failed to tend to Nichols' serious medical needs after the beating, and that they didn't tell arriving EMTs about his injuries, which the prosecution says could have helped save him. So as you said, very disturbing thing.

This is going to be obviously very challenging for people to sit through, including you, I would think. So let's turn to the defense now. What did we find out about their strategy? The defense attorneys haven't been speaking publicly, so this was jurors and really our first peek at their version of events. Each of the defendants, Tadarius Bean, Justin Smith, and Demetrius Haley have their own attorneys. So we heard three opening statements.

They had some common themes saying these officers work in a dangerous city and have dangerous jobs. The officers were part of a special police unit called Scorpion that was stationed in areas with high crime rates in Memphis. One attorney described Nichols as a, quote, high-risk suspect because he failed to stop for the officers' blue lights for some time after driving erratically. After he eventually did stop, the defense says Nichols heightened the situation by fleeing.

Lawyers also talked about how the officers' police training allows for escalated force in certain situations. And they told jurors that the officers radioed for paramedics to check out Nichols right away. We also learned that Smith's attorney says his client will take the stand to tell his side of the story. Interesting. So we are going to hear, we're likely to hear from at least one of the officers. What comes next? Well, the prosecution has already called their first witness. She's a nurse practitioner who tended to Nichols at the hospital and testified about the severity of his injuries. And of note, outside of these court proceedings, the Department of Justice is currently conducting a civil investigation

to determine if issues like an excessive use of force are systemic within the Memphis Police Department. That is Katie Reardon with Member Station WKNO in Memphis. Katie, thanks so much for sharing this reporting. Thanks for having me. And that's Up First for Thursday, September 12th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Leila Faldil. For your next listen, try Consider This from NPR. In their latest episode, they take a deep dive into Tuesday's presidential debate in Philadelphia. With the race to the White House neck and neck, will Vice President Kamala Harris's dominant performance make a difference? Listen to Consider This wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by

Rebecca Rossman, Susanna Capilouto, Emily Kopp, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Iman Maani, Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, Chris Thomas, and Lindsay Taddy. We get engineering support from Carly Strange, and our technical director is Zach Coleman. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow. Wilderness is changing more wildfires more people more cell service the how wild podcast hits the trail to explore the history of wilderness how it's changing and what that says about us as humans listen now to the how wild podcast from KALW, part of the NPR network. This Hispanic Heritage Month, Code Switch sits down with Mexican-Cuban-American journalist and author Paula Ramos to discuss the rise of U.S. Latinos to the far right.

It's a small but growing shift in American politics. Paula Ramos thinks she knows what's behind it. Listen on the Code Switch podcast from NPR.